PDF Accessibility Checker
Fast, secure, client-side utility running entirely in your browser with zero server dependencies.
PDF Accessibility Checker
Verify document accessibility against ISO 14289-1 (PDF/UA) and WCAG 2.2 standards for government, legal, and educational publishing.
PDF/UA & WCAG Compliance Audit Wizard
Answer the key structural criteria below to assess whether your digital PDF meets ISO 14289-1 (PDF/Universal Accessibility) legal requirements.
PDF Accessibility Checker - PDF/UA & WCAG Compliance Checklist: Interactive compliance checklist and remediation auditor for PDF/UA and WCAG Section 508 document accessibility. 100% free and private browser utility.
How to Use the PDF Accessibility Checker
Select PDF Tagging & Document Metadata
Indicate whether the PDF has an underlying Tag Tree, a descriptive document title, and an explicit language attribute (e.g. en-US).
Evaluate Heading Structure & Figure Alt Text
Assess whether chapters and headings are tagged with H1–H6 tags and confirm that images have alternative text or are marked as decorative artifacts.
Review Bookmarks and Table Markup
Verify that long documents include hierarchical navigation bookmarks and tables are tagged with <th> header cells.
Export Remediation Action Plan
Generate a step-by-step Adobe Acrobat / Microsoft Word remediation checklist to bring documents into full ISO 14289-1 compliance.
Comprehensive Guide: PDF Accessibility Checker
Digital PDFs represent one of the most persistent barriers in digital accessibility. Federal agencies, municipalities, healthcare providers, and higher-education institutions publish millions of PDF documents annually—including annual financial reports, student enrollment forms, medical benefit summaries, and public meeting minutes. Under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act and ADA Title II, all publicly available PDFs must be accessible.
The international technical standard for accessible PDF documents is ISO 14289-1, known as PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility). PDF/UA operates in tandem with WCAG: while WCAG provides content-level guidelines, PDF/UA defines how the underlying PDF file format must be engineered so assistive technologies can reliably parse document structure.
The foundational requirement of PDF accessibility is the "Tagged PDF." A standard visual PDF is merely a collection of vector coordinates and visual glyphs; it has no concept of what is a paragraph, a column, or a heading. When a PDF is tagged, an invisible XML-like "Tag Tree" is embedded in the file, defining elements like ` `, `<table>`, and ` Document metadata is frequently neglected during PDF export. A compliant PDF must feature an explicit ``, `
Key Features & Capabilities
ISO 14289-1 PDF/UA Checklist
Evaluates documents against international standards for accessible electronic publishing.
Section 508 & ADA Audit Readiness
Identifies non-compliant government and corporate documents before legal filing deadlines.
Tag Tree Architecture Verification
Audits logical reading order to prevent two-column reading confusion in assistive readers.
Figure & Artifact Management
Guides remediation of decorative background watermarks and missing chart descriptions.
Long-Document Bookmark Check
Ensures long documents (> 20 pages) feature hierarchical navigation bookmarks.
Acrobat & Word Remediation Guidance
Provides specific software actions for Adobe Acrobat Pro, Microsoft Word, and InDesign.
Frequently Asked Questions
A scanned PDF is simply a digital photograph of a paper page saved inside a PDF wrapper. It contains no text characters or font data—only pixels. To make a scanned PDF accessible, you must first run Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to convert pixels into text, and then tag the document with semantic tags.
PAC (PDF Accessibility Checker) is a widely recognized free desktop tool developed by the PDF/UA Foundation. It performs automated technical validation against the Matterhorn Protocol and ISO 14289-1, verifying the PDF tag tree, font embedding, and reading order.
In Adobe Acrobat Pro, open the Touch Up Reading Order panel, select the decorative element (such as a colored border, logo watermark, or decorative separator line), and click "Background / Artifact". This removes it from the tag tree while keeping it visually visible.
Yes. In Microsoft Word, if you use built-in Heading Styles (Heading 1, Heading 2), add alt text to images, use table headers with "Repeat as header row", and export via File -> Save As -> PDF -> Options -> "Document structure tags for accessibility" and "ISO 19005-1 compliant (PDF/A)", Word produces a well-tagged PDF.
The Document Title is announced as the window title when the document opens, informing screen reader users what document is active. The Language tag (e.g. en-US, es-ES) instructs the screen reader engine to switch to the correct phonetic pronunciation dictionary.